About the author

I am Mark de Vries, a 37-year-old lay Catholic from the Netherlands. I have been Catholic (and a Christian) since my baptism at the start of Easter of 2007, so experience and a lifelong education in the faith are not things I can fall back on. As a consequence I write as an interested layman with no basis in anything else than my short life as a Catholic.

About this blog

I am a Dutch Catholic from the north of the Netherlands. In this blog I wish to provide accurate information on current affairs in the Church and the relation with society. It is important for Catholics to have knowledge about their own faith and Church, especially since these are frequently misrepresented in many places. My blog has two directions, although I use only English in my writings: on the one hand, I want to inform Dutch faithful - hence the presence of a page with Dutch translations of texts which I consider interesting or important -, and on the other hand, I want to inform the wider world of what is going on in the Church in the Netherlands.

It is sometimes tempting to be too negative about such topics. I don't want to do that: my approach is an inherently positive one, and loyal to the Magisterium of the Church. In many quarters this is an unfamiliar idea: criticism is often the standard approach to the Church, her bishops and priests and other representatives. I will be critical when that is warranted, but it is not my standard approach.

For a personal account about my reasons for becoming and remaining Catholic, go read my story: Why am I Catholic?

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People who want to contact me with questions or information regarding my blog or other Catholic social media projects, can do so via Twitter (see below) or via mr.hofer@gmail.com

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The above means that I have the right to be recognised as the author of both the original blog posts, as well as any translations I make. Everyone is free to share my content, but with credit in the form of my name or a link to my blog.

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Over the years, my blog posts have been picked up by various other blogs, websites and media outlets.

All links to, quotations of and use as source material of my blog posts is greatly appreciated. It's what I blog for: to further awareness and knowledge in a positive critical spirit. Credits are equally liked, of course.

Sancta Maria, hortus conclusus, ora pro nobis!

Sancta Maria Goretti, ora pro nobis!

Pope Francis

Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of Rome, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, Servant of the Servants of God

Fr. Peter Wellen

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Willem Cardinal Eijk

Cardinal-Priest of San Callisto, Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht

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Critical blogging – some thoughts

Knowledgeable laity

In the process of becoming an active Catholic blogger, I have been introduced to a fair number of colleagues, so to speak: people who are Catholic and blog about their faith and the Church. Sometimes they are diarists writing about their personal experiences, sometimes professional theologians or priests and sometimes knowledgeable lay people. Any combination of the above is also possible of course, but I want to focus specifically on the latter group: the knowledgeable laity.

These are often devoted Catholics who know their way around theology and liturgy, the world Church and their local parish. As such they can, and often will, connect what happens on the local level to the greater theological trends and events in Rome, as well as Church history and dogma. And that is good. The individual parishes and dioceses aren’t separate but, to paraphrase yesterday’s second reading, members of one body, and the body as a whole is the deciding factor of the actions of the members, even if sometimes unconsciously.

These knowledgeable lay bloggers have an acute awareness of the connection between members and body, and vice versa. And that is perhaps especially so when something disturbs that connection, when a member does not fit in well, or does something that is harmful to other members or the body as a whole. In the Netherlands there are many instances, past and present, of such a disruption, and these pop up in the media every now and then. Parishes coming up with homemade liturgies, priests or pastoral workers spouting non-Catholic theology, and they often do it without knowing it.

Bishops

In a diocese the bishop is ultimately responsible for making sure the members – faithful, priests, parishes – under his jurisdiction are healthy and function well. The bishops of a Church province are gathered in a bishops’ conference and this conference is called to Rome regularly – theoretically every five years – in a so-called ad limina visit. In Rome, they meet with curia officials and the pope to discuss the specific events, positive and negative, in their Church province. Often, the conclusions of an ad limina visit are collected in a document, and the bishops return home with, literally, a mission. It is but one of the means through which the body of the Church makes sure its members are healthy and function properly. It may sound horribly clinical, but in a gathering as large as the Catholic Church, clear regulations are a boon.

The Dutch bishops last visited Rome in 2004, so the next visit should have taken place last year. However, the five-year minimum is somewhat flexible due to time constraints of pope, curia and local bishops. The next ad limina visit of the Dutch bishops will, however, not be far off.

Detecting problems

There are also other ways for members and body to function properly. The members themselves may detect a disturbance and alert other members and the body. They are often closer to the action, after all. But what is the best way to follow this route?

There are members of the group of knowledgeable lay bloggers who take it upon themselves to alert other members, specifically other faithful, the bishops and the rest of the magisterium. They do so through blogging about illegal developments in parishes and dioceses, collecting reports of individual infractions or dubious developments, and sometimes hinting at plans to send it to Rome on the occasion of a future ad limina visit.

The question is: does this work?

On one level it does. It makes people aware of what goes on, and why certain developments are not good. Awareness of the problem is essential when you want to find a solution.

On another level it does not work; the bloggers’ tone and emphasis on the negative will put people off from either the blog, its author or, worse, the bishops responsible and the Church. Then you end up with members operating outside the body. Too often, the blogs in question paint pictures of faithful, priests, pastoral workers and bishops that are not favourable, to put it mildly. They say the responsible parties do nothing, keep their eyes closed. Sometimes such criticism is justified, but not when the goal is finding a remedy to the problem.

In the Church we have bishops and priests to act as shepherds of their flock, to lead them and do what is necessary to keep the flock together and on track. The flock does not decide what, when and how a shepherd will act, although a good shepherd looks at his flock’s signs and bases his actions on that. The approach I outlined above is basically a case of sheep trying to taking over from the shepherd. An oft-heard complaint is that a bishop does not act, or not soon enough. I would say that not all actions of a shepherd are, or should be, public knowledge. Deducing that something goes wrong in a parish does not mean that the bishop sits back and condones it. Maybe he is working on finding a solution, or perhaps he is waiting for an official report which takes time. Outside the diocesan offices there will be little indication of that. But the fact that we can’t see through walls does not mean that nothing happens behind those walls. We will see and hear once a door or window opens.

The approach of documenting the abuses and disturbances online and suggesting a lack of action from the parties responsible is ultimately incomplete and wrong. It creates a certain measure of critical questioning, to be sure, but also frustration, antagonism, polarisation and a misguided sense of influence (a few hundred page views per day and a hundred followers of Twitter do not mean you have the ear of Rome), but does not lead to concrete solutions.

In my opinion any lasting solutions can only be achieved through and by the body of the Church as a whole, so through the hierarchy as it exists. Bishops and other responsible persons must be made aware of abuses, but can’t be left out of any debate or discussion. It is the duty of the reporting party to ask directly for answers from the responsible party. Simply throwing it online and expecting a bishop to read it and come running with a solution does not cut it. Neither does ignoring said bishop and hurry to tell his superiors, or paint a picture of him.

I often get the impression that people see priests and bishops as mere appointed officials in the bureaucratic system, and not as the ordained members of the Church of Christ. Through their ordination they have the obligation and ability to teach and shepherded, but also the right to our obedience.

I’ll end with some words from Father Martin Kromann Knudsen, FSSP, found here:

The pope, the bishops and the priests have the power to lead and manage us in the name of Christ. Through them we received the merciful life through baptism, they give us the bread of heaven and raise us to be children of God. In Christ’s place they are our spiritual fathers. We must honour them, love them and obey them. If we do not agree with them we must keep that to ourselves. It is not honourable for a Catholic to openly protest the authority of the Church. An obedient child of the Church ideally offers his displeasure in prayer, and returns to his religious duties, which is to sanctify his soul.

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incaelo

I'm a 37-year-old lay Catholic from the diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden. I write about the Catholic Church in the Netherlands. I not only enjoy bringing selected developments to the attention of readers, but I also think that it is sometimes important to allow a wider audience to read about the state of the Church in the Netherlands. That's why a fair number of posts about that topic will be translations of Dutch articles, episcopal writings and whatever else.
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2 thoughts on “Critical blogging – some thoughts”

Something to think of as well is Canon 212 §3 of the Code of Canon Law:

“[The faithful] have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with their knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to the sacred Pastors their views on matters which concern the good of the Church. They have the right also to make their views known to others of Christ’s faithful, but in doing so they must always respect the integrity of faith and morals, show due reverence to the Pastors and take into account both the common good and the dignity of individuals.”

So yes, in terms of CIC 212 §1, we ought not backbite, equally if we do know something about something, then we are under almost holy obedience to disclose it.